Marie-Danielle Smith, The Canadian Press Published Tuesday, July 12, 2022 at 5:19 AM EDT
OTTAWA – The chairman of the federal Conservative Party’s leadership election organizing committee privately expressed concerns about Patrick Brown’s story as he examined him as a potential candidate, according to documentation obtained by The Canadian Press.
He suggests that Ian Brodie raised questions about Brown’s financial situation in a phone call in late March with someone he consulted as part of the verification process after the former Ontario progressive Conservative leader had stated his intention to ‘join the race.
It also indicates that Brodie expressed suspicion about the claim that the candidate had been fully vindicated of the allegations of sexual misconduct that CTV reported in 2018, which at the time led to an exodus of its senior staff to Queen’s Park, its own resignation and, finally, his expulsion from the conservative progressive Caucus of Ontario.
The Canadian press reviewed the documentation on the call provided by a source who participated in the individual conversation with Brodie. The source was granted anonymity to talk about the call because they fear professional repercussions.
The Conservatives are recovering from Brown’s sudden disqualification from the leadership race last week, the result of the most recent and separate allegations of financial irregularity by a whistleblower who had been part of his campaign team.
Debbie Jodoin, a longtime Conservative organizer, said through her lawyer last Thursday that she had been paid by a third-party company for her work on Brown’s campaign and that Brown had been involved in the deal.
In announcing the decision to disqualify Brown last Tuesday, Brodie had only said the committee had been informed of “serious allegations of crimes” related to the funding rules of the Canada Elections Act.
Brown has argued that his campaign did nothing wrong. He has hired Toronto’s high-profile lawyer, Marie Henein, and is pressuring the party to pursue an appeal process. The party has convened an independent lawyer to review whether an appeal can be heard.
Documentation relating to the pre-March call seems to shed more light on the tense talks about whether the political harassment should be allowed to join the contest in the first place.
On Monday, Brodie referred questions to a Conservative Party of Canada spokesman, Yaroslav Baran, who said Brodie would not comment on the process followed by the Leadership Election Committee (LEOC).
“It will not go into the internal making of LEOC sausages,” Baran wrote in an email. “There is nothing to be gained by setting such precedents and breaking professional discipline.”
Some members of the leadership committee were arguing against Brown’s candidacy at the time Brodie made the phone call, sources with knowledge of the situation said last week that they would only speak on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, documentation indicates that the influential president himself was making inquiries about his own unanswered questions in March.
On Monday, Brown’s team said it was not known that Brodie was raising any concerns behind the scenes during the verification process.
Documentation from the March phone call indicates that Brodie transmitted that committee members had received a dossier of documents from an anonymous source sent to their private email addresses.
The documents contained records of Brown’s mortgage with TD Bank and other financial issues, the Brodie source said in the call.
The Canadian press contacted other members of the leadership committee about Brodie’s inquiries during the verification process, but received no comment in return.
The documentation in the call indicates that the conversation relates to a report from the Ontario Integrity Commissioner, published in April 2018, which found that Brown had breached ethical rules by failing to disclose rental income and a large loan he used to help finance $ 2.3 million. seafront property in 2016 and 2017. The report said Brown, who at the time earned about $ 180,000 a year as the provincial party leader, had taken out a $ 1.72 million mortgage on TD Bank.
According to the call documentation, Brodie expressed that there were questions about Brown’s income and how the house could have been paid for.
In response to a February 2018 Globe and Mail report on the purchase, Brown said he had received help from his family to buy his home. On Monday, his campaign spokesman said he had “nothing new to add” on the matter.
Documentation indicates that the call also affected the March 9 settlement of Brown’s defamation suit against CTV.
A statement released by the station and Brown at the time said CTV regrets that some “key details” of the original story were inaccurate. The statement did not specify what those inaccuracies were, but the original article includes a correction that updates the age of one of the two women who accused Brown of sexual misconduct.
The news network said in March that there was no money exchanged hands in the deal.
Brown has continued to deny any crime, and the allegations were not proven in court or independently verified by The Canadian Press.
Although Brown was elected mayor of Brampton, Ontario in October 2018 – less than a year after history erupted – the deal seemed to pave the way for greater ambitions: he stated his intention to run as Conservative federal leader just four days later.
“When the media tried to get me to cancel the last victim of the culture with false allegations, I fought and won,” Brown told a lively crowd at the launch of his campaign.
The narrative that Brown had been rescued by the deal did not seem to please Brodie well, according to the source aware of the call, and the president said the allegations were still disturbing.
Despite this apprehension, and the fact that Ontario’s progressive Conservatives had disqualified Brown from running under his provincial flag, the federal leadership election organizing committee finally approved Brown’s candidacy on April 26th.
Chisholm Pothier, a spokesman for Brown’s campaign, said Monday that they had not received any questions on either issue and that they were not informed of any concerns Brodie was raising at the time.
He said the leadership committee requested Brown’s bank records during the verification process and that there was no further communication about financial problems after the campaign provided them.
“As with the LEOC’s complaint approach and decision, the campaign appears to be informed by the press rather than by the party on these issues,” Pothier said.